MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (23 page)

TALON238> We’re ready. We just got a shipment of Elite and Epic weapons last month. DPS’s have tons of Mana. And the tanks are buffed.

WAR_MONGER> Excellent. The time for the raid is 11:30 am EST. Have everyone online and ready to roll. Rally on me and don’t be late! The Alliance may be listening, so only communicate in Whisper mode.

TALON238> Of course. The whole Guild will be there and at your command. Where do you want us to gather?

WAR_MONGER> Come in southeast of The Zoram Strand. Clear out all the mobs. Then we attack the Keep itself and use the Spell. The Oracle says there are 110 Gold and 234 Silver inside. That’s the real target!

TALON238> 110 234 Got it. This is going to rock the World!

WAR_MONGER> Remember, eliminate all castle guards patrolling the road to the Keep, and kill all other players in the area then get clear. The Dragon Fire spell will be coming through the south gates of the Keep soon after!

TALON238> Got it. The Horde can’t wait to see it burn! The Gods willing, we’ll succeed and dance on its burning rubble!

WAR_MONGER> No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast. The Gods and their magic are with us. The White Keep is vulnerable. Good hunting!

Right after he finished reading the conversation to them, Robert turned to what was called ‘Decoding the Scenario.’ In the next sheets, it was shown how the bad guys were actually planning a nuclear attack on the White House and how the information about coordinates, attack vector, avenue of approach, and timing were encoded in the conversation.

They remained silent for a few moments. Robert was first to speak. “What do you think?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m curious to know what you think. You’ve been playing for quite some time now, so you’re no rookie anymore. So tell me.”

He nodded at Rebecca. “Okay, my feeling is that it’s total bullshit. And I’m not even level eighty yet.”

“Why do you think so?”

“First of all, Talon238 says that ‘all the warriors have been training and are organized.’ That suggests that all the guild members are warriors, which is extremely unlikely. He also says that they’re all at level seventy, which must have been the maximum level back then. At maximum level, you don’t get experience points at all. It has become an obsolete concept. So why is War Monger talking about ‘Lots of XP for everyone?’ And why does Talon238 answer ‘That’s what we’ve been waiting for?’ It’s total bullshit from a WoW point of view.”

Rebecca smiled warmly at him. “Good! What else?”

“Well, they’re going to Stonetalon Mountains. I’ve been there myself, and also in Ashenvale, where the map is from. There are no instances in Ashenvale or Stonetalon Mountains. And there certainly is nothing that a level seventy should turn away from because it’s ‘too strong’, let alone a whole party of level seventies. Hell, I’m level seventy myself now, and I could kill anything that lives in Ashenvale in seconds. And the White Keep doesn’t exist. At least, not there.”

Still smiling, Rebecca encouraged him with her eyes. Robert started to feel more comfortable. It was amazing how much knowledge he had gained already.

“They say that the White Keep is an instance, and that’s indeed the only thing that it could possibly be. But then War_Monger says ‘PvP baby!’ which is complete nonsense. It’s contradictory. Doing an instance has nothing to do with Player versus Player combat.”

“Correct. Go on.”

“I don’t know about a Dragon Fire Spell, but I assume that a spell is mastered. It seems strange and illogical that a spell would be carried in someone’s inventory. Then there’s the mention of the ‘shipment’ of elite and epic weapons. I don’t know what elite weapons are or if they exist at all, but I do know what epic weapons are. One thing is for sure. They don’t arrive in shipments. They appear sporadically, or they can be bought, but usually can’t be sent or transferred at all because they’re soulbound to the player who picks them up.”

This was rewarded by an even broader smile. “Very good. Anything else?”

He smiled back. Andy was looking at them with wide eyes. He was obviously out of his depth, trying his best to follow what they were saying.

“Yes, well, the rest is bullocks as well,” Robert continued. “The raid is in a few days, but the tanks are buffed? Everybody knows that a buff exists for only two hours maximum. And the Alliance may be listening? That’s ridiculous, because the Horde and the Alliance can’t even talk to each other, let alone eavesdrop on each other. And a ‘real target’ of 110 Gold and 234 Silver isn’t going to arouse any player at maximum level, let alone a whole guild. That amount of gold would be peanuts to them.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think this scenario is utter nonsense. At least, from a WoW point of view.”

Rebecca put a hand on his arm and left it there. She looked him right into the eyes. “I agree, and that’s what I don’t understand. This whole conversation is ridiculous. You haven’t even pointed out everything. In fact, every single line screams ‘this is bullshit’ to the reader who knows anything about World of Warcraft.”

Searching for a metaphor, Robert said “It’s like reading a report about Iceland that says the people living there are all negroes, the climate is hot and humid, and that the country is so densely populated that it makes you feel crowded.”

She laughed. “Nicely put! The question is why? Why is this report so faulty? Why is it so full of mistakes that it can’t be taken seriously? Why did they do this?”

“Do you think the mistakes were made on purpose?”

“What else? Look, this Dwight Toavs. He’s a professor, right?”

Robert nodded in confirmation. “At the National Defense University, whatever that may be.”

“Exactly. This guy is about science. And scientists are thorough. They investigate. They check and double check their facts. So it’s highly unlikely that a professor would present something so obviously and totally wrong. The twelve year old son of his neighbors could have told him so.”

“But why would he do it? Why would he make mistakes in his presentation on purpose?”

Rebecca shrugged. “I don’t know. My best guess is that it’s because they were aiming for the reactions they got. I had a look at some forums. As expected, the presentation hit the WoW community within hours, with countless people commenting on it. Precisely because it’s so much bullshit, people were shredding it and tearing it apart, not taking it seriously at all. Maybe that’s exactly what they were aiming for.”

“You mean they wanted it to be disregarded?’

“Yes!” She leaned forward with glittering eyes. “That must be it!” She hit him on the shoulder quite hard. Robert winced, but didn’t pull away. “It’s so obvious,” she continued. “They didn’t want to advertise the opportunities that WoW offers to criminals or terrorists. So they released a research report that would be viciously denounced as utter nonsense as a kind of smoke screen. They got their message across to the people who mattered, but otherwise managed to bury the research report under a stinking heap of ridicule.”

Robert whistled. “Clever. If that’s what really happened, those guys in the US are smart.”

“They could be. It could be plain stupidity as well.”

Robert nodded. “Either way, it shows once again that maybe we’re not chasing shadows.

“We need to approach this as if we have to convince a jury,” she admonished. “At what time do we have the appointment?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” Andy answered.

“That means we have only tonight to rehearse our presentation. Robert, let’s go to your
place first so I can dump my stuff. Then we go somewhere else. Andy, can we use your apartment? We can’t risk Khalid walking into the room of his new neighbor friend while we’re discussing his doings.”

With a big smile on her face Rebecca looked at Andy and said, “Who would have thought that our dear Robert would get friendly with a terrorist?”

Robert was about to protest when he saw her wink. He mumbled something inaudible in reply and stood to pay the bill.

They discussed their case till deep in the night. Finally, they agreed on the order in which it would be presented and on who would tell which part. It was past two a.m. when Robert and Rebecca went back to the ancient house on the square where Robert and Khalid lived. The cobble-stoned streets were silent and deserted, and they walked in silence as well.

In his room Rebecca forestalled any uncertainties about what was going to happen next. She took a toothbrush out of her bag and disappeared to the bathroom. She was away for over five minutes.

“Your turn,” she said when she returned.

He nodded and left the room, to discover upon returning that she had produced a bright red sleeping bag and a thin travel mattress. She was just crawling into the sleeping bag when he entered.

He felt a mixture of relief that a potentially awkward situation had been averted by her, and equal disappointment about the way in which it had happened. “Don’t you think it should be the other way around?” he asked. “You can take the bed, and I’ll sleep on the ground.”

She shook her head and smiled at him. “No way. I’ve slept in this thing often enough. Go get some sleep. Tomorrow is an important day!”

He stood in the middle of the room for a few seconds, unsure whether he should press the point. He decided to give in and started to undress. Rebecca turned her face to the wall.

“Sleep well,” he said, a second before he turned off the light.

“Goodnight, Robert.”

~~~

Chapter XX

She
woke him at eight o’clock, teasing him out of his slumber with the smell of freshly brewed coffee. “Gratz with level seventy-three,” she answered to his mumbled greeting.

He sat up straight. “What?”

She smiled down at him. “I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to push on. We’re running out of time. You need to be at eighty as soon as possible.”

He felt a mixture of regret and elation. One part of him welcomed the extra three levels, another part chafed at having been cheated out of the satisfaction of achieving them for himself.

She seemed to read his feelings and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have time to explore the ground I’ve already covered for you later. Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.”

He smiled back at her. “Yeah. Thanks.”

They were brought to the same interview room as before. Only this time, Robert felt much more at ease. Maybe it was the presence of Rebecca, maybe it was the fact that they had really prepared for the occasion, or maybe it was simply because he felt so much more convinced about what they were going to tell.

The man they had come to meet motioned them to sit at the table. The last time, the female police officer had sat opposite them, making it clear there were two sides of the fence. This time, each of them sat at one of the four sides of the square table, making it a much more equal arrangement. Robert glanced again at the business card the police officer had given to Rebecca.
Sander Slingerberg
: what an impossible name to remember, let alone pronounce.

“I take it you have something important to tell me,” Mr. Slingerberg began. He looked inquiringly at each of them in turn.

“Indeed,” Robert began. “Last time you asked us to keep an eye on my neighbor and to call you when other suspicious things came up. By keeping an eye out, we discovered several profoundly disturbing things. For your convenience, we’ve put down our findings in a document. It’s in Dutch. We’d like you to read it and discuss it with you.”

On cue, Andy pushed the file across the table. “
Alstublieft
,
” he said in Dutch.

Mr. Slingerberg opened the file and flipped through the pages. It held five pages with an extensive narrative of everything worth mentioning about what they had seen and done. Also included were the maps of the murder site in Belgium, the CIA report, the PowerPoint presentation by professor Toavs, and some of the articles about the use of WoW as a research ground for infectious diseases. They had also included several screenshots to give an impression of the texture of World of Warcraft.

“Do I have to read all of this now?”

This time, it was Rebecca who spoke. “That’s possible. But we can also give you a summary, leaving the details and proof for you to read at your leisure.”

She got a slow nod in return. “That seems a good way to approach this. So which one of you is going to be the spokesman? Or spokeswoman?”

The three exchanged a glance. Rebecca nodded almost imperceptibly. Andy cleared his throat. “Eh, that would be me. We felt that it could best be done in Dutch.”

The man looked at the faces of Rebecca and Robert. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“No, not at all,” Rebecca ensured him. “As long as we can discuss things in English afterward.”

Andy started by giving an outline of the magnitude of World of Warcraft and the many potential possibilities it presented for a criminal organization. To underline his words, he showed documents at the appropriate times, explaining their content.

From there, he took the policeman to the Hammer of Grimstone and the observations they had made. When he showed the maps concerning the murder of Benjamin Natale, Mr. Slingerberg took a full five minutes to study them. He asked some questions, which were answered by Rebecca.

Eventually, they came to the point how Robert had befriended Khalid and the latter’s announcement that he would be out of town for several days during the first week of December.

When Andy had finished, Mr. Slingerberg said nothing for a while. He stared at the ceiling, tapping his fingers on the table. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned his attention back to them.

“I must admit that I have no experience whatsoever with computer games. However, after you were here last time, I did a little research into World of Warcraft. I read about it on the Internet and asked around. My conclusion is that what you’re saying isn’t impossible. Improbable, but not impossible. The point is, it’s not up to me to decide whether your story is plausible or not. Another problem is, I know just as much as you, even less, about those attacks you mentioned. They happened outside my jurisdiction. One was in Belgium and the attack on the boat was in another area.”